Week 2 Writing Homework
Prompt :
Using the techniques explored throughout these sessions, write a captivating opening to a story about discovering a forgotten library. Focus particularly on creating a vivid setting that engages all senses and establishes a distinctive atmosphere.
Using the techniques explored throughout these sessions, write a captivating opening to a story about discovering a forgotten library. Focus particularly on creating a vivid setting that engages all senses and establishes a distinctive atmosphere. 500 words
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- Due Date : May 17, 2025
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4 thoughts on “Week 2 Writing Homework”
The Forgotten Library
The door was barely a door at all, just a warped sliver of wood buried in the stone, half-swallowed by creeping ivy. It groaned when pushed, a sound like an old throat clearing after centuries of silence. Cold air spilled out, tasting of dust and secrets, curling around my ankles like the breath of something long asleep.
I stepped inside.
The air thickened instantly, heavy with the scent of decaying parchment and damp stone. It clung to my skin, slick and clammy, like the inside of a forgotten tomb. My footsteps echoed with hollow insistence, as if the very walls remembered sound and were eager to hold onto it.
The room opened out around me, vast and shrouded in shadow. Light strained through the cracked ceiling, pale shafts slicing the darkness like hesitant fingers. Dust danced in those rays, slow, deliberate, almost reverent, each mote a tiny relic of the past. Books loomed on every side, stacked in precarious towers and crowded shelves, their spines curled and crumbling, titles faded to whispers. Some looked as if they might collapse under the weight of their own knowledge.
I reached out to touch one, and the leather cover flaked beneath my fingertips like brittle skin. It was warm, unnaturally so, as though it held the ghost of a hand that had just released it. The air stirred, rustling the pages of an open tome on a nearby lectern. The sound was dry and papery, like old wings fluttering in warning.
A clock somewhere deep within the walls ticked faintly. It was steady but distant, like a heartbeat buried in stone. Time hadn’t stopped here, it had only been ignored, left to echo behind the hush. I imagined it as a keeper of memories, marking the slow decay of everything the world above had forgotten.
The smell deepened the further I walked: old ink, mildew, the iron tang of something ancient. A tapestry on the wall shivered, though there was no breeze. My skin prickled. This place wasn’t just abandoned, it was waiting. Watching.
A single candle flickered on a table in the center, though I hadn’t lit it. Its flame leaned toward me, a thin, trembling tongue, as if whispering secrets only the brave, or the foolish, would dare to hear. My throat tightened, the silence pressing down, dense and velvet-soft, wrapping around me like the hush before a storm.
I’d come here chasing a myth. A library no one remembered, one not marked on any map, spoken of only in scraps of lore passed between bookish wanderers. I had expected dust and silence. I had not expected presence.
The library was alive.
My footsteps echoed through the deserted, cobwebbed aisles. The foot high dust murmured unhappily as I plough through it. Ancient, antique bookshelves creaked mournfully under the weight of heavy, leather bound volumes, their titles glinting faintly from the dim light of candles. The thick volumes, with their peeling covers and yellow page, seemed to be talking and whispering to the soft wind whenever my back was turned. Moth-eaten chairs stand dismally as their worn-out cushions told a story of a once merry library. Now however, disturbed spiders scuttle angrily across its surface. The golden sunlight would have shone through the colorful, paned windows but the cobwebs, dust and mold covered it. Color pencils lay scattered on the floor, the words on them faded and ineligible. Two crudely made tables stood side by side. I could see that trying to draw on them would be like trying to build a castle of cards on a crooked table.
There was something about this cathedral sized library that suggested former grandeur. Crystal chandeliers dangle, bedraggled with cobwebs. Windows the size of doors stand, no longer colored, but grey and dull. A throne like chair was in the center of all this. Red velvet still shone faintly through the dust that called it their home. The librarian’s desk looked, like the rest of the library, perfectly in order. All the reserved books lay in alphabetical order. I was busy examining the contents of a drawer when CRASH!!!
I screamed. The shelve of heavy volumes had collapsed centimeter from where I stood. I leapt a meter into the air and backed away, but everything seemed to be fine. I crept back down to the chairs and ventured further into the labyrinth of literature. Dead ends greeted me in earnest. Until, I found stairs. Cautiously, I crept up them, into a domed room. It was a bedroom. A pale blue comb lay on the dressing table. In the far corner was a tiny bed. Next to that, was a small cupboard.
I backed out of the room down the stairs. That’s when I saw him. A young boy. Whizzing over the dust with new hover ski’s, checking the books. Then he returned into a concealed door that I had not spotted. Quietly, I tiptoed down the stairs and then, sprinted as fast as I could towards the exit. I heard a yell, “Someone’s here!” Then shelves attacked, they lunged and grabbed at me with books. I used these to my advantage. Hopping onto them like parkour. Then I ran towards the door, slamming it after me. Behind it, I heard several books slamming into the other side.
so i know we were supposed to do 4 different texts about different descriptive methods, but I ended up writing it all mashed up into one.
scholary HW- library
Writing in attachment.
Scholarly Writing